(AP) The U.S. military said Wednesday it is looking into the unauthorized release of a photo purportedly taken by an American drone aircraft showing scores of Taliban militants at a funeral in Afghanistan.

NBC-TV claimed U.S. Army officers wanted to attack the ceremony with missiles carried by the Predator drone, but were prevented under rules of battlefield engagement that bar attacks on cemeteries.

Lt. Tamara Lawrence, a spokeswoman with the U.S. military in Kabul, said the photograph was released to the network by someone who did not have the clearance to hand it out.

"It is an operational security issue and the photo was released at an inappropriate level," Lawrence told The Associated Press. "Inquiries are being made into how it was released."

NATO spokesman James Appathurai declined to comment on the incident.

"I haven't seen the story and I can't comment on U.S. rules of engagement," he told a news conference in Brussels, Belgium.

Lawrence declined to provide further details. It was not clear when the photo was taken nor where the gathering took place.

The grainy black and white photo shows what NBC says are some 190 Taliban militants standing in several rows near a vehicle in an open area of land. Gunsight-like brackets were positioned over the group in the photo.

NBC quoted one Army officer who was involved with the spy mission as saying "we were so excited" that the group had been spotted and was in the sights of a U.S. drone. But the network quoted the officer, who was not identified, as saying that frustration soon set in after the officers realized they couldn't bomb the funeral under the military's rules of engagement.

NBC later removed the photo from its Web site.

At the Pentagon, officials also declined to comment on what the photo depicts, when it was taken, and what the rules of engagement are in such situations.

But Defense Department officials have said repeatedly that while they try to be mindful of religious and cultural sensitivities, they make no promises that such sites can always be avoided in battle because militants often seek cover in those and other civilian sites.

Mosques and similar locations have become frequent sites of violence in the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Taliban militants this year have been waging their bloodiest campaign of violence since their 2001 ouster from power in the U.S.-led invasion launched after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The U.S. military has previously used Predator drones with deadly effect, firing one missile into a Pakistani tribal area near the Afghan border in January in a failed bid to kill al Qaeda deputy Ayman al-Zawahri. The strike killed at least 13 civilians.

Could have taken out almost 200 armed Taliban without any chance of civilian casualties and they passed that up? It wasn't against NATO's rules of engagement or the Geneva Convention. Someone needs to be fired.

It does work like that, you can't promote freedom, democracy and human rights if you go around breaking those very same ideals. Comes down to what kind of world you want to live in, the kind where people bomb funerals or the kind where they dont ?

That's the thing, it didn't really go against any rules of engagement since they were armed. The Euros, Americans and obviously the nations which don't have any rules of engagement at all, have historically done battle in graveyards.

It does work like that, you can't promote freedom, democracy and human rights if you go around breaking those very same ideals. Comes down to what kind of world you want to live in, the kind where people bomb funerals or the kind where they dont ?

You can't promote freedom being handicapped by trying to give respect to the enemy where there is none shown to you. Europe tried that with Hitler initially with disastrous results. I am not saying that the US resort to all Islamo fascist tactics, but they were armed and were not a violation of any rule of battle.

And it's better to kill them there than to try and pick them out trying to shield themselves with civilians

You can't promote freedom being handicapped by trying to give respect to the enemy where there is none shown to you. Europe tried that with Hitler initially with disastrous results. I am not saying that the US resort to all Islamo fascist tactics, but they were armed and were not a violation of any rule of battle.

And it's better to kill them there than to try and pick them out trying to shield themselves with civilians

Ever thought that the reason they are among civilians might be because that's what many of them were before you invaded their country ? It's not like they have any safe left bases to go too, where else would they be other than in towns and villages ?

And frankly the WWII reference is silly, not only is it wrong it also has nothing to do with the current situations.

What people like you don't seem to get is that you can't end terrorism by killing all the terrorists, that just breeds yet more hatred among those relatives and friends they left behind, you end terrorism by removing the reasons for commiting that terrorism.